Government pay scales are inflexible. A college graduate in CS would typically enter government service as an O-1 or GS-7, step 1. Both are less than $40k/year. Pay maxes out at around $150k/year after 18 years of unremarkable service. If you somehow manage to become a 4-star general of the cyberbrigades, in essence the CEO of Army Programming, Inc., you could possibly earn $180k per year, with no equity, but a nice pension plan.
But you won't get even half that far. The mental processes involved in creating military procedures are fundamentally incompatible with those involved in software development. It is worth noting that everything Original Poster did to improve anything was completely against the rules, and was only permitted because it actually worked out in the field, and did not negatively impact anyone's duties.
Government hiring is ridiculous. I once overheard a conversation about the possibility of converting contractors to employees. As it turns out, thanks to the preference ranking systems, the person most perfectly qualified to do the job, because that is exactly what he was currently already paid to do, with over 10 years of experience doing just that, would typically turn up no earlier than the third page of applicants. Every one of them would have to be individually considered and rejected before reaching the person already doing the job. Also, he would have to take a 50% cut in pay.
Essentially, the government cannot compete in the open job market for any skill that makes a person worth hiring. They are therefore forced to train existing military personnel in software wherever necessary. And as expected, they train for that in a similar manner to the way they train everything else. The person is ordered to transfer to Fort Wherever for six weeks, to become a programmer. You end up with a person that thinks Waterfall is a good process, better programs have more lines of code, and that unit tests are written from an Excel template.
You cannot solve a problem from the same state of mind that created it. The military is covered with leechlike contractor companies because they have been forbidden by law, by regulation, and by standing order from solving their own problems in an effective way. As always, the worst problem is bad management.
Comments
There are several reasons.
Government pay scales are inflexible. A college graduate in CS would typically enter government service as an O-1 or GS-7, step 1. Both are less than $40k/year. Pay maxes out at around $150k/year after 18 years of unremarkable service. If you somehow manage to become a 4-star general of the cyberbrigades, in essence the CEO of Army Programming, Inc., you could possibly earn $180k per year, with no equity, but a nice pension plan.
But you won't get even half that far. The mental processes involved in creating military procedures are fundamentally incompatible with those involved in software development. It is worth noting that everything Original Poster did to improve anything was completely against the rules, and was only permitted because it actually worked out in the field, and did not negatively impact anyone's duties.
Government hiring is ridiculous. I once overheard a conversation about the possibility of converting contractors to employees. As it turns out, thanks to the preference ranking systems, the person most perfectly qualified to do the job, because that is exactly what he was currently already paid to do, with over 10 years of experience doing just that, would typically turn up no earlier than the third page of applicants. Every one of them would have to be individually considered and rejected before reaching the person already doing the job. Also, he would have to take a 50% cut in pay.
Essentially, the government cannot compete in the open job market for any skill that makes a person worth hiring. They are therefore forced to train existing military personnel in software wherever necessary. And as expected, they train for that in a similar manner to the way they train everything else. The person is ordered to transfer to Fort Wherever for six weeks, to become a programmer. You end up with a person that thinks Waterfall is a good process, better programs have more lines of code, and that unit tests are written from an Excel template.
You cannot solve a problem from the same state of mind that created it. The military is covered with leechlike contractor companies because they have been forbidden by law, by regulation, and by standing order from solving their own problems in an effective way. As always, the worst problem is bad management.